In January of 1994, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani directed the Police Commissioner, William J. Bratton, to make the central focus of the New York City Police Department to reduce crime, disorder, and fear in New York City. At the same time, the Commissioner was directed to carry out this work with the highest possible degree of integrity. Within the first year of the Giuliani Administration, six crime strategies were adopted to address guns, youth violence, drugs, domestic violence, disorder in public places, and auto-related theft (NYPD Strategy No. 7, 1995).
During the same period of time, the NYPD changed its top layer of management, abolished one level in the chain of command, empowered a new team of precinct commanders to customize tactics to local conditions, and established a system of managament meetings for crime control, which every month assess progress in each precinct against serious crime and disorder NYPD Strategy No. 7, 1995).

To transform the NYPD into an agency dependent on integrity, Commissioner Bratton launched a top-down assessment of the organization. In early 1994 he ordered a Cultural Diagnostic of the organization to determine what obstacles existed that would impede organizational change. The analysis found that within the NYPD culture existed organizational fear, self-protection, secrecy, and exlusion. Front-line officers existed in a negative organizational culture and felt that the more removed from Headquarters an officer became, the less he or she felt trusted and respected. It was also felt among front-line officers that the organziation systems were "designed to protect the brass from criticism at the expense of those on the front lines" (NYPD Strategy No. 7, 1995).

During January and February of 1994, 25 focus groups with police officers, detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, and precinct commanders were facilitated by the Departement. In March of 1994 a formal reengineering process was set into motion to redesign every organizational system to come into alignment with the Department's new mission. Twelve reeingineering teams, composed of more than 300 people from all ranks within the NYPD and bureau, as well as experts from a variety of disciplines outside the Department, looked at the central issues of training, supervision, discipline, rewards, and integrity. "More than 600 recommendations were made, over 80% of which were eventually accepted" (NYPD Stratey No. 7, 1995).

In August of 1994 a sixteen-page mailback questionnaire (NYPD Survey No. 1) was distributed to all Department members below the rank of captain. 6,982 members returned the survey (a 24.7% response rate) and the Northeastern University's Center for Applied Social Research coded, entered, and tabulated the data (NYPD Strategy No. 7, 1995).

Internal Affairs Bureau


The Integrity Reengineering Report cited several problems within the structure of the Internal Affairs Bureau and its operating procedure. Because the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) and Field Internal Affairs Units (FIAU) shared jurisdiction and had split accountability, confusion existed as to who was responsible for what aspects of a case and who was responsible for follow through. The IAB was understaffed and underequipped. Some of the personnel within IAB had never received the IAB Internal Investigator's Course or the basic Criminal Investigation Course. The IAB was also forced to work with outdated equipment. The computer systems used did not meet the Bureau's needs and did not allow for adequate case management. Also, personnel within IAB did not share information, even when working on related cases. The Reengineering Team also noted that the secrecy and exlusion model used by IAB was not the right perspective to work from. Precinct commanders were excluded from knowledge of on-going investigations and not trusted to assist in the investigation. Likewise, lietenants, who serve as integrity control officers, were not included in the investigation of corruption complaints or on-going investigations. Even after the 1993 structural changes of IAB, the Bureau suffered from poor case management. Poor Bureau management led to a strain on budgetary resources and the fragmented structure of the Bureau did not provide clear lines of accountability. Finally, the IAB concentrated on reactive investigations and not on analyzing patterns of behavior, actions, and complaints within the department (NYPD Strategy No. 7, 1995).

Organizational Systems: Supervision


The Zuccotti Committee (1987), the Mollen Commission (1994), and the NYPD's Reengineering Teams on Supervision and Integrity (1994) all found the lack of strong supervision to contribute to incidents of misconduct, corruption, and brutality. In 1994, Survey No. 1 (conducted by NYPD) and focus groups within the NYPD confrimed this weakness in supervision. Four factors were identified as contributing to this weakness in supervision: the closeness in age of supervisors to their subordinates, the lack of street experience and seasoning by new sergeants, cyclical shortages causing sergeants to serve as just another response unit to emeregency calls, and inadequate training.

Results of NYPD Survey No. 1 showed that uniformed officers below the rank of lieutenant did not feel first-line supervisors were strong leaders. 66.6% of officers felt that first-line supervisors did not have enough confidence to handle situations on the street. 38.6% of officers felt first-line supervisors were affraid to deal with corrupt officers.

In addition, the Reengineering Team on Supervision found that supervisory training had shortfalls. First, training did not include how to handle tactical situations and how to control personnel during searches. Also, new supervisors going through the Basic Management Orientation Course were only evaluated on a fifteen question multiple choice examination. Failure of the test only resulted in a return to the police academy for retesting. The only penalty for failure of the test was denial of college credit (NYPD Stratey No. 7, 1995).

Organizational Systems: Patrol


According to the results of NYPD Survey No. 1, 44.6% of the patrol officers, 34.4% of the sergeants, and 27.5% of the lieutenants responding stated that if they had to do it over again they would not choose to be New York City Police Officers, a clear sign of alienation among organizational members. During a 1994 evaluation, it was found that very low arrest averages and some individuals having no arrests in a number of years was common among a large number of officers. Officers were discouraged from making arrests, except in the presence of supervisors, because of a fear of scandal. Before 1994, few officers were fired during or after probation and rewards were not associated with performance outcomes. In addition, being assigned to patrol was seen as the "dumping ground" for officers who failed to perform or had a poor performance record. There were no consequences for doing nothing (NYPD Strategy No. 7, 1995).

A National Perspective


Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies around the United States have also been plagued by a series of highly visible incidents (FBI-Ruby Ridge and LAPD-Rodney King). As a result, once again the law enforcement community has been forced to reexamine its core principles and its method of operation. In July of 1996 two hundred participants including police chiefs, sheriffs, police researchers, police officers, community leaders, and members of federal agencies attended the National Symposium on Police Integrity in Washington D.C., sponsored by the National Institute of Justice. The focus on the issue of integrity opened a broader area of discussion like building organizations that instill and maintain integrity-not just pointing it out. During the course of the two-and-a-half day symposium, nine work groups focused on key issues in their discussion of integrity. The published results of the symposium (Police integrity: Public service with honor) from NIJ (1997) focused on thirteen key issues: